New Research on Old Collections in Southwest Asian Archaeology

Contents

List of Figures

List of Tables

Preface – St John Simpson

Chapter 1: Introduction – Mette Bangsborg Thuesen & Giulia Russo

SECTION I:  UNDERSTANDING THE PRODUCTION AND USE-LIFE OF OBJECTS IN MUSEUM COLLECTIONS

Chapter 2: Writing the biography of artefacts retired in Museums. A methodological approach to the study of Mesopotamian statuary – Imane Achouche

Chapter 3: A multidisciplinary approach to the study of zoomorphic figurines from Ur – Enrica Inversi

Chapter 4: Gaining clarity from old glass: Some surprising results from heritage collections at the British Museum – Charlotte Nash-Pye

SECTION II: RE-ASSESSING OLD DOCUMENTATION AND PERSPECTIVES ON ARCHIVAL AND COLLECTION PRACTICES

Chapter 5: Plain and significant: The making of a pottery typology from Takht-e Suleiman – Mette Bangsborg Thuesen

Chapter 6: New approaches to old stratigraphy: The Sequence-of-Events Analysis – Georg Cyrus

Chapter 7: “It’s crazy the things we let go of” – Archaeological collections and museums depots: some thoughts on sustainability – Giulia Russo

About the Author

Mette Bangsborg Thuesen is a project curator in the Middle East Department at the British Museum. She earned her PhD from Freie Universität Berlin, focusing on pottery as a source for reconstructing commensality and daily life in Sasanian Iran. She has held research posts at Ca' Foscari University and the University of Copenhagen, and contributed to various archival and digitisation projects. She has worked as an excavator, ceramicist, and small finds specialist on several archaeological field projects, primarily in Jordan, Iran, Iraq, and Iraqi Kurdistan.

Giulia Russo is a PhD candidate in Archaeology of Ancient Southwest Asia at Freie Universität Berlin. Her research focuses on Chalcolithic Mesopotamia, and particularly on pottery chaînes opératoires and communities of practice, examining how technical knowledge and traditions were passed down through generations. Her fieldwork experience includes archaeological projects in Italy, Oman, Egypt, India, Azerbaijan, Iraqi Kurdistan, and Iraq. From 2022 to 2023, she worked as a curatorial assistant at the Vorderasiatisches Museum in Berlin.